Chess History and ReminiscencesBird, H. E. (Henry Edward)
History
Chess History and Reminiscences
Bird, H. E. (Henry Edward)
Chess
Such consideration as can be found devoted to the game or
games of the Egyptians mainly relates to hypothesis and conjectures
in regard to the inscriptions recorded to have been discovered on
tombs and the temples generally, and especially on the wall of
the great palace of Medinet Abu at Egyptian Thebes, which,
according to the most approved authorities, derived from the
scrolls, relates to the time of Ramesses Meiammun the 16th, out
of the 17 monarchs of the 18th dynasty, who as is supposed,
reigned from 1559 to 1493 B.C., and constructed Medinet Abu,
and is pronounced most likely to be the monarch represented on
its walls. His title is Ramses, and he is considered to have been
the grandfather of Sesostris 1st of the 19th dynasty, whose reign is
stated as from 1473 to 1418 B.C.
Some discussion arose in chess circles in 1872 in reference to
Mr. Disraeli's mention of chess in one of his books. Chapter 16 of
"Alroy" begins--"Two stout soldiers were playing chess in a
coffee-house," and Mr. Disraeli inserts on this the following note
(80). On the walls of the palace of Amenoph II, called Medinet
Abuh, at Egyptian Thebes, the King is represented playing chess
with the Queen. This monarch reigned long before the Trojan
war.
A writer, who styled himself the author of Fossil Chess, in
criticising the above, refers to Sir Gardiner Wilkinson's work,
"A popular account of the ancient Egyptians, which declares the
game to resemble draughts, the pieces being uniform in pattern."
The same critic further remarks, "In the same work may be
found some account of the paintings in the tomb of Beni Hassan,
presumably the oldest in Egypt, dating back from the time of
Osirtasen I, twenty centuries before the Christian era, and eight
hundred years anterior to the reign of Rameses III, by whom the
temple of Medinet Abuh was commenced, and who is the Rameses
portrayed on its walls. An unaccountable error on Mr. Disraeli's
part in the same note assigns its erection to Amenoph II, who
lived 1414 B.C.
The eminent and revered writer and statesman may not have
selected the supposed best authorities for his dates, but the
sapient critic indulges in a strange admixture of misconception.
However, Egyptian chronology is not fully agreed upon, even
Manetho and Herodotus differ some 120 years as to the time of
Sesostris, and Bishop Warburton, we read, was highly indignant
with a scholar, one Nicholas Man, who argued for the identity of
Osiris and Sesostris after he (the bishop) had said they were to be
distinguished. Respecting English origin, all authorities down to
the end of the Eighteenth century agreed in ascribing the first
knowledge of chess to the time of William the Conqueror, or to
that of the return of the first Crusaders.
Perhaps, however, it reached us in the days of Charlemagne,
and may well have done so through Alcuin of York, his friend
and tutor in the reigns of Offa and of Egbert.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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